photographs-and-push-knives

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Reblog if your muse gives good hugs! 

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i'm bored on a saturday. if you want to plot or send in a starter idea or anything else, please lmk! for anyone new around here, i'm not very picky at all when it comes to genre!! i'm crossover and oc friendly.

no pressure at all as always. hope you're all doing swell :)

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Send me   “ 🤐 “   for my muse to admit a secret they’ve been keeping from yours

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“This is what I like about photographs. They’re proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.”

— Jodi Picoult

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hello hellsite mutuals and lurkers! it's almost time for band camp (starts at 9am tomorrow and i have to be there early because i'm ✨ important ✨). this is collegiate band camp and therefore i will be astonishingly busy and amazingly tired. days start at 6:30am and end at 10:00pm, not counting the commute. wish me luck, and i'll get back to you asap!

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i've realized that with the new mobile game i may very well have to watch hughes die a FOURTH TIME 😭

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What would you do if Gracia was kidnapped?

"Find her and get her home, obviously. Oh, and murder whoever took her."

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If you had to go on the run, would you take your family with you? What if they were being targeted too?

"I'd need at least a few more crumbs of context to fully answer this, but in some situations, yes, I'd bring them with me. If it's just me being hunted down, no. If they're also being targeted, we're all leaving, and I won't say where we'd go. Just know you wouldn't find us and you wouldn't want to, either."

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What was your family like growing up?

"Pretty good, actually. I really enjoyed being around my parents, and they seemed to enjoy me too even though I never stopped talking. I didn't really like my father's parents, and I didn't get to know my mother's either. I have one cousin, but I've only met him... twice? I think twice, and he freaked me out both times."

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Can you tell us about a time Elicia scared you?

"I am SO glad you asked! Elicia is my favorite subject to talk about. I think the time she scared me the most was the time I'd dozed off on the couch probably a month ago. I thought falsely that she was asleep in her room, and I woke up to her shaking my arm standing over me, which would have been fine if there weren't blood all over her face and down her chest. She ended up being okay and it had just been that she hit her nose on something, but... you know. For a second there I felt my heart stop."

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What's a hidden talent that you have?

"Does knowing how to get on Roy's nerves count, or is that too easy? If it is... I can balance a spoon on my nose."

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What's your favorite thing (or things!) about Gracia?

"How could I ever list them all?! Of course, her cooking is amazing, but her eyes are also SO pretty, and she's such a good person and... agh. I love her so much."

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Reblog this to have people go into your inbox & ask your character questions!

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@lovingmilitarywife

“I’ll call him after I’m sure you’re taken care of,” Gracia said firmly. She looked at him, sitting in the floor, and sighed a little. “It’s not exactly where I wanted you, but it’ll do. Just keep leaning against the tub for a moment.”

She bustled about the bathroom, stepping over and around him, gathering the supplies she thought she might need. She might not have ever finished nursing school, but she had been close, and she knew enough to treat some injuries at home. She kept things well stocked. She talked as she worked.

“I’m certain whatever it is that you two are planning, it very much isn’t something I need to know about,” she said. “Just like with most of your work, it’s probably safer if I don’t know the details. But Maes, I’m your wife. You don’t have to be so surprised. Of course I knew you two were up to something and were careful about it. I just didn’t let myself even think about what it might be.”

She knelt next to him, supplies at the ready. “Alright. We’ll think about all of that later. Right now we’re going to have to get all of this off so that I can see this wound and the others better.”

The jacket was heavy with blood, and so was his shirt, and Gracia tried not to think too hard about just how much blood he had lost. She could think about that later, to get a better idea of his condition. Right now what was important was that it was a lot, and whatever happened when they pulled all of this off of the wound, she was going to need to do her best to keep the blood loss to a minimum.

“Alright. This will probably hurt, so just bare with me.”

————————

Safer if she didn't know the details.

Yes, it was, more than Maes could even begin to describe. He rested fully against the back of the tub, trying not to think about how he'd almost been slumped in a phone booth with a lot more blood loss than this instead.

Near brushes with death weren't exactly easy to get over, especially after uncovering what he had.

The initial wound through his shoulder had hurt an insane amount. Surely that'd been the worst of it - well, that and packing it with fabric. He'd gotten through that, though, so... he trusted he'd be fine.

Maes opened his eyes once Gracia was kneeling next to him. He hadn't even realized he'd shut them, honestly - was he that close to falling asleep?

"Bearing with you," he replied with the smallest hint of a smile, trying to remain at least a little lighthearted. His tone didn't show it, though, and he put his good hand over his mouth in an effort to brace himself for whatever was going to come.

Pulling off his jacket and shirt revealed that, just as he'd informed her, his shoulder had been run straight through with two blades - he wasn't about to tell her what those had actually been, blades was a fine and close enough word - and he'd suffered a few minor lacerations and scrapes from the second fight as well. Miraculously, he was able to clench his jaw and breathe heavily through the pain instead of screaming like he wanted to, because he wanted Elicia to stay asleep even more than he wanted to experience any catharsis.

It took absolutely everything in him to stay upright instead of giving in to how tired he was. He'd scared Gracia enough, after all. He didn't need to make it worse. On top of that, he needed to get through this so he could make sure his wife followed through with calling Roy. No way could he let himself pass out now.

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@lovingmilitarywife

Maes’ arms around her, holding her close, keeping Elicia safely sandwiched between them was comforting. Her daughter was safe. Her daughter was safe between them. No one could hurt her. No one could get her. That was all that mattered. Elicia was safe.

She didn’t fight it when Maes pulled back from her, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking her and Elicia over. She didn’t want to leave his grasp, but she understood that he probably needed to see that they were safe. She leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes. She wanted so very much to cry and loose herself, knowing she was safe, but she couldn’t give into that while Elicia was still in her arms, still distressed.

She opened her eyes again, though, when he said they were going home. Part of Gracia wanted to ask about the–the body… the body of the man she had… that she had killed. Just thinking about it caused her heartrate to skyrocket, and threatened the threadbare control she had on her emotions. Shouldn’t something be done?

But at the same time, she trusted her husband. He worked in investigations. He knew how to handle things like this. He would do what was best, and to be honest, she really didn’t want to stick around.

She let him take Elicia–probably the only person that could take her daughter from her right now–and watched as the small girl latched onto her father, curling into him, still clearly upset. Gracia didn’t fight him when he took her revolver. She probably didn’t need to have it in her hand right now anyway.

She nodded at Maes’ words, although her legs felt shaky. She was still shaking she realized, but he was right–they had to go home. She had to get Elicia clean. This was traumatic enough for the three year old. Getting her clean would certainly help, wouldn’t it?

Gracia didn’t know, but she hoped so. A strange sort of numbness was settling over her, and she let it, not even fighting it, and keeping her focus on Elicia’s well being. If she could do that, then maybe, just maybe, she could make it home and take care of her daughter before she fell apart completely.

She leaned into her husband, ready to go wherever he would lead her.

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"I've got you both. It's alright."

He kept Elicia cradled in one arm, keeping the other around Gracia as soon as he was able to safely pocket the gun. On one hand, he knew Riza and knew she wouldn't have dared just let Gracia have a gun without teaching her decent trigger discipline, but on the other hand, trigger discipline wasn't something that always stuck in times like these to people who weren't at least a little desensitized.

Maes got them both home, glad that at least the park wasn't too far from the house and that they wouldn't have to pass by the body again on the way.

His mind immediately was set on 'task mode' the second he was shoving his key into the lock to open the front door - get the girls inside, set them to go get clean, call MPs, figure out next steps.

Thankfully, his heart had calmed down by that point. He'd have time to reflect on how much blood didn't stress him out anymore later.

"Gracia, can you please go try and start getting Elicia cleaned off? I'll be in there as soon as I can get a call through for some people to take care of all this so I can stay home with you two."

No way was he leaving them to deal with a fresh traumatic event all alone. Even if they weren't Gracia and Elicia, Maes just wasn't cruel enough to abandon people who needed someone calmer around. And because they were Gracia and Elicia... all the more reason he had to stay.

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@lovingmilitarywife

“Impaled!?”

That was not something that Gracia wanted to hear. Impalement was a complete other level of care, and one she wasn’t sure she could fix on her couch. Of concern was also pretty much everything else that he said, not to mention everything she saw when she gave him a very quick (almost) professional assessment.

He was pale. He had cuts and on him, and he sounded exhausted. In the light from the hallway she could tell that much, and if she could tell that much in the dim light, then that wasn’t a good thing.

“Alright,” she said, her voice firm. “Alright, we’ll figure all of that out later. Right now, we are going to get you to our bathroom, and you are going to sit there and let me treat you as best I can. I don’t know if I have all of the supplies for it, but I need to look you over in better light to see exactly what I’m dealing with here.”

She moved to his side, pausing only to pick up her small revolver and tuck it in the pocket of her housecoat before moving to help him stand up.

“I’m not surprised that Roy is on it,” she said as worked to get him standing and moving. “I called him the day you didn’t come home. I called your work first, but all they could tell me was that you were missing and that there was blood. I called Roy after that, figuring that you would call him if you had gotten into something dangerous, if you could. I’m not surprised he didn’t call me after he heard from you. You two are always careful about information on the phone.”

She’d deal with the idea that he hoped the military thought he was dead and that she couldn’t tell anyone otherwise in a moment. Like she was taught in her courses in nursing school–prioritize. And her first priority was to make sure that her husband would live and that she’d have to lie to people.

"I'm sure you'll manage to fix it just fine," he said, fully confident in Gracia's ability to improvise if she had to. Maes tried to get up on his own as she explained - he'd walked all the way there, after all - but he unfortunately did have to rely on her for some support due to how much the room spun by the time he was actually up.

Her explanation and statement caught him a little off-guard. She'd noticed how careful they were? Even with all the heavy coding-in-plain-sight and random conversations thrown in?

"We have to be," he replied, squeezing his eyes shut against the light of the bathroom once they actually got into it. It took him a bit too long to adjust to his liking. "We have to be because of exactly this kind of thing happening. It's... it's complicated and dangerous and very, very illegal."

He wouldn't normally say anything to her, not in a million years (especially about the legality, or lack thereof, of Roy's endeavors), but exhaustion from blood loss and desperation to make sure she understood the gravity of his request were both taking a hold on him.

"Actually, it might help if you call him again and ask for updates... throw off suspicion, at least off of him."

If they got ahold of Roy... or God forbid, they already had...

The mere idea of what would happen to his best friend as a result coming into Maes' head was what finally wiped him out, forcing him to crumple onto the floor so he wouldn't crush Gracia.

"... Please call him soon, Gracia. I need to know he's okay."

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@lovingmilitarywife

Gracia was shaking, but she was ignoring that in favor of soothing her daughter. Elicia had been terrified by the man, and Gracia couldn’t blame her in the least. Gracia had been terrified by him as well, sickened by his threats. What he had said made her both want to throw up and go put another bullet in the man. Although if she were honest, knowing that part of her wished to go shoot the man again made her sick to her stomach too.

There was a lot to unpack there, but she’d have to deal with that later. It was a struggle, but she kept the emotions of what she did–what she had to do–to herself and focused everything on Elicia. If she did that, then she could keep her calm for her daughter.

She had grabbed up Elicia as soon as she could, the little girl screaming in fear from the whole situation, and spirited her away from the dead man and the general location, her revolver still in hand, just in case the man had accomplices. Being that they were in park, there weren’t a lot of places to hide, but Gracia knew of a small place near the pond. She took Elicia there, shushing the frightened, sobbing girl the whole time. Gracia tried not to think about the blood and other substance that were on her daughter, and how they were also probably on herself. Instead, she crouched them in some bushes, and dipped her handkerchief in the water, using it to clean Elicia up as best she could, and trying to comfort her.

She jerked when she heard a voice, pulling Elicia closer to her, and picking up the revolver that she had sat down. But then, it hit her who that voice was, and with relief, and a bit of a waver in her voice, she stood up, stumbling out of the bushes and calling to him.

“Maes!? Maes, we’re–we’re here!”

Elicia wailed. “Daddy!!” The little girl clearly wanted the security of both of her parents.

As soon as she spotted him, Gracia ran straight for her husband, Elicia still in her arms, and practically fell into his arms, only keeping aware enough to remember she still had her revolver in her hand.

“Maes! Maes, oh, Maes!”

They were safe now, and Gracia could barely keep herself together anymore.

Maes walked faster to meet them as they stumbled out of the bushes, wrapping both arms securely around them.

"Hey, hey..." he soothed, not hesitating due to the blood. It didn't bother him much anymore (he didn't like that it was on his wife and child, of course) and he'd had enough around him and on his hands alike to not be fazed.

After a moment of holding them, he pushed Gracia's shoulders a bit to hold her at arm's length and look her in the face, one hand cupping her cheek. "It's okay. Nobody else is around, everything's okay. Let's go home."

Some MPs could handle the body later. He'd call them to do it.

Maes then carefully took Elicia, holding her close against his chest. With his free hand, he reached out to gently remove the revolver from Gracia's hand. Best not to let someone in the middle of hysterics have one of those, so he'd unfortunately learned.

His heart rate was up, now only because he'd been running, but Elicia was three, so he hoped she wouldn't take notice of that and instead be calmed. "Shh... it's alright, princess. Nobody's going to hurt you. I've got you, you're safe. We're going to go home and get you and mama all clean."